Firefly/Dresden Files crossover

[Masterwindu487]

I was thinking about potential ways to make crossovers when I stumbled upon an idea. Firefly/Dresden Files.

The Firerfly crew meet a rogue sorcerer. He want to go back in time back to earth. Firefly crew accidentally comes along for the ride.

White Council finds out, uses it manpower to get them. Kills sorcerer. Decides not to kill them due to be unwilling participants. Harry Dresden becomes their guide to modern life.

 

[storyteller101q]

:huh:

When you were summarizing the fic, I couldn't help but think of rorscharch.

 

[Dementist]

To blow a great, gaping hole in your idea: One of the Laws prohibits mucking about with time. It's not so much to prevent warlocks from making themselves rich as to stop all of reality imploding via time paradox.

Given how utterly hard-assed the council is, there's not a chance in hell they'll let the crew run around freely. That's assuming they don't just vaporize the gang to prevent unintended causality fuckups, of course.

 

[Belgarion213]

Indeed. Furthermore why the hell wasn't the gatekeeper, either in the future of the past, not popping up and stopping this from happening. I mean unless for some reason this is after the war and Dresden has a LOT more political capital than he does during the early books, I honestly can't see it.

Assuming the White Council DOES decide to spare them...why the hell are they being guided around by Dresden? There are HUNDREDS of wizards/apprentices/auxiliaries to the white council. Dresden is one with a lot of potential and is highly suspect in his early dealings and later on participating in that war.

 

[Masterwindu487]

To blow a great, gaping hole in your idea: One of the Laws prohibits mucking about with time. It's not so much to prevent warlocks from making themselves rich as to stop all of reality imploding via time paradox.

Given how utterly hard-assed the council is, there's not a chance in hell they'll let the crew run around freely. That's assuming they don't just vaporize the gang to prevent unintended causality fuckups, of course.

The laws do, but you can make a case of them being unwitting particippants. And if them being there is going to fuck the universe, it would have hapened already.

Why Harry? Because we know the most about harry.

 

[Ryuugi]

To blow a great, gaping hole in your idea: One of the Laws prohibits mucking about with time. It's not so much to prevent warlocks from making themselves rich as to stop all of reality imploding via time paradox.

Given how utterly hard-assed the council is, there's not a chance in hell they'll let the crew run around freely. That's assuming they don't just vaporize the gang to prevent unintended causality fuckups, of course.

The laws do, but you can make a case of them being unwitting particippants. And if them being there is going to fuck the universe, it would have hapened already.

Why Harry? Because we know the most about harry.

Being unwitting is not an excuse as far as the Council is concerned. Molly, Harry, and nameless-Korean-nobody were all unwitting.

Especially since messing with Time (and, really, Laws 5-7), are the most important Laws, as far as the Council is concerned. Hell, breaking the Seventh Law doesn't even require casting a spell, but they'll still kill you for it (which is understandable).

Also, just like running into a school and unloading a machine-gun (but not killing anyone), as well as playing chicken with Nukes, it didn't end badly this time isn't an excuse.

 

[Solarman]

To blow a great, gaping hole in your idea: One of the Laws prohibits mucking about with time. It's not so much to prevent warlocks from making themselves rich as to stop all of reality imploding via time paradox.

Given how utterly hard-assed the council is, there's not a chance in hell they'll let the crew run around freely. That's assuming they don't just vaporize the gang to prevent unintended causality fuckups, of course.

The laws do, but you can make a case of them being unwitting particippants. And if them being there is going to fuck the universe, it would have hapened already.

Why Harry? Because we know the most about harry.

Being unwitting is not an excuse as far as the Council is concerned. Molly, Harry, and nameless-Korean-nobody were all unwitting.

Especially since messing with Time (and, really, Laws 5-7), are the most important Laws, as far as the Council is concerned. Hell, breaking the Seventh Law doesn't even require casting a spell, but they'll still kill you for it (which is understandable).

Also, just like running into a school and unloading a machine-gun (but not killing anyone), as well as playing chicken with Nukes, it didn't end badly this time isn't an excuse.

Actually, Harry knew that magical killings carried a capital sentence but had nothing non-lethal drilled into him to respond to Justin with, unlike his fire spells, and he was repentant, and nameless-Korean-nobody was a raving megalomaniac psycopath by the end, regardless of whether or not he was aware that it was a capital crime to tamper with peoples' minds. Molly was unwitting in her first use, the next ones less-so, but she wasn't malevolent (yet) like nameless-Korean-nobody, was repentant like Harry, and Harry had support from a majority of the Senior Council present and Rashid really helped him out by stalling the Merlin with the whole procedural thing.

I'm not 100% certain of what the Council would do to people who came back in time who didn't mean to. Maybe they'd have a way to send them back to the future, but if they didn't they'd have protocols to prevent them from mucking around with causality accidentally (yes, those protocols are probably the Blackstaff killing them or erasing their memories. And it would have to be the Blackstaff.)

There'd have to be a damn good reason for Rashid to let the Serenity crew wander around 21st century Earth (and let's not pretend here, Rashid seems to have all the real power on the Senior Council.)

edit: Oh, and this doesn't even approach the question of how exactly wizards managed to get off Earth, since they cause technology to go haywire just by mere proximity.

 

[Ryuugi]

To blow a great, gaping hole in your idea: One of the Laws prohibits mucking about with time. It's not so much to prevent warlocks from making themselves rich as to stop all of reality imploding via time paradox.

Given how utterly hard-assed the council is, there's not a chance in hell they'll let the crew run around freely. That's assuming they don't just vaporize the gang to prevent unintended causality fuckups, of course.

The laws do, but you can make a case of them being unwitting particippants. And if them being there is going to fuck the universe, it would have hapened already.

Why Harry? Because we know the most about harry.

Being unwitting is not an excuse as far as the Council is concerned. Molly, Harry, and nameless-Korean-nobody were all unwitting.

Especially since messing with Time (and, really, Laws 5-7), are the most important Laws, as far as the Council is concerned. Hell, breaking the Seventh Law doesn't even require casting a spell, but they'll still kill you for it (which is understandable).

Also, just like running into a school and unloading a machine-gun (but not killing anyone), as well as playing chicken with Nukes, it didn't end badly this time isn't an excuse.

Actually, Harry knew that magical killings carried a capital sentence but had nothing non-lethal drilled into him to respond to Justin with, unlike his fire spells, and he was repentant, and nameless-Korean-nobody was a raving megalomaniac psycopath by the end, regardless of whether or not he was aware that it was a capital crime to tamper with peoples' minds. Molly was unwitting in her first use, the next ones less-so, but she wasn't malevolent (yet) like nameless-Korean-nobody, was repentant like Harry, and Harry had support from a majority of the Senior Council present and Rashid really helped him out by stalling the Merlin with the whole procedural thing.

I'm not 100% certain of what the Council would do to people who came back in time who didn't mean to. Maybe they'd have a way to send them back to the future, but if they didn't they'd have protocols to prevent them from mucking around with causality accidentally (yes, those protocols are probably the Blackstaff killing them or erasing their memories. And it would have to be the Blackstaff.)

There'd have to be a damn good reason for Rashid to let the Serenity crew wander around 21st century Earth (and let's not pretend here, Rashid seems to have all the real power on the Senior Council.)

edit: Oh, and this doesn't even approach the question of how exactly wizards managed to get off Earth, since they cause technology to go haywire just by mere proximity.

I'm pretty sure it was stated that Harry didn't even know of the WC existence prior to getting taken to court (and I'm pretty damn sure he wasn't sorry about killing Justin). And I think that Harry said the Korean kid didn't know at the start of GP.

 

[Solarman]

To blow a great, gaping hole in your idea: One of the Laws prohibits mucking about with time. It's not so much to prevent warlocks from making themselves rich as to stop all of reality imploding via time paradox.

Given how utterly hard-assed the council is, there's not a chance in hell they'll let the crew run around freely. That's assuming they don't just vaporize the gang to prevent unintended causality fuckups, of course.

The laws do, but you can make a case of them being unwitting particippants. And if them being there is going to fuck the universe, it would have hapened already.

Why Harry? Because we know the most about harry.

Being unwitting is not an excuse as far as the Council is concerned. Molly, Harry, and nameless-Korean-nobody were all unwitting.

Especially since messing with Time (and, really, Laws 5-7), are the most important Laws, as far as the Council is concerned. Hell, breaking the Seventh Law doesn't even require casting a spell, but they'll still kill you for it (which is understandable).

Also, just like running into a school and unloading a machine-gun (but not killing anyone), as well as playing chicken with Nukes, it didn't end badly this time isn't an excuse.

Actually, Harry knew that magical killings carried a capital sentence but had nothing non-lethal drilled into him to respond to Justin with, unlike his fire spells, and he was repentant, and nameless-Korean-nobody was a raving megalomaniac psycopath by the end, regardless of whether or not he was aware that it was a capital crime to tamper with peoples' minds. Molly was unwitting in her first use, the next ones less-so, but she wasn't malevolent (yet) like nameless-Korean-nobody, was repentant like Harry, and Harry had support from a majority of the Senior Council present and Rashid really helped him out by stalling the Merlin with the whole procedural thing.

I'm not 100% certain of what the Council would do to people who came back in time who didn't mean to. Maybe they'd have a way to send them back to the future, but if they didn't they'd have protocols to prevent them from mucking around with causality accidentally (yes, those protocols are probably the Blackstaff killing them or erasing their memories. And it would have to be the Blackstaff.)

There'd have to be a damn good reason for Rashid to let the Serenity crew wander around 21st century Earth (and let's not pretend here, Rashid seems to have all the real power on the Senior Council.)

edit: Oh, and this doesn't even approach the question of how exactly wizards managed to get off Earth, since they cause technology to go haywire just by mere proximity.

I'm pretty sure it was stated that Harry didn't even know of the WC existence prior to getting taken to court (and I'm pretty damn sure he wasn't sorry about killing Justin). And I think that Harry said the Korean kid didn't know at the start of GP.

I'm not so sure about him not knowing about the Council. After all, Justin DuMorne was a former Warden, and Elaine knew enough to know to get the fuck out of dodge after the thrall spell broke if she didn't want to be picked up as an accomplice to DuMorne. And I'm fairly sure that, while he wasn't sorry Justin died, he was fairly repentant in terms of "I'm never going to kill a human with magic fire ever again, and I didn't really want to in the first place if I wasn't gonna get killed myself *vomits at the memories of burning humans*" much like Molly was repentant in "I never want to hurt people like I hurt my friends," once she realized just how much damage she had wrought. Of course, Molly was actually sorry she'd done it, once she realized the damage, but repentant isn't necessarily sorry. As I said, by the time they brought the Korean boy in, he was a raving megalomaniac psychopath who could and would manipulate minds to get his way.

And what do the courts pound into us time and again? Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Mitigating circumstances like Harry's might earn you a reduced sentence (the Doom of Damocles), as, apparently, might whatever convinced the non-Ebenezer members (Ebenezer trusts Harry implicitly) of the SC that Molly was worthy (probably the flaming sword her father wielded, and the fact that he was in the room. Except Rashid, but who knows what the hell his rationale is?), assuming you have a wizard willing to stand up for you like Ebenezer and Harry.

The thing here is that Mal and Co. didn't cast the spell and, temporal displacement aside, the only one of them who the White Council might conceivably have jurisdiction on is River, depending on how her psychic abilities are perceived by the council. The Council has one of four options: one: Rashid says time needed them here, intact, so Harry gets tour guide duty until it all plays out, and then one of the others comes into play; two: mind-wipe; three: elimination; or four, return them to their own time before causality begins to unravel. Numbers two and three would mean that Ebenezer (or if the author goes that route, Harry) gets to do the dirty work, since he's the Blackstaff, and number four might mean him as well, depending on how the relevant rule on time travel reads.

 

[Belgarion213]

Actually I'm fairly sure Harry knew shit all about the council. He knew of other wizards but not the over-reaching body that made up their collective or whatever you want to call it.

 

[Ryuugi]

I'm not so sure about him not knowing about the Council. After all, Justin DuMorne was a former Warden, and Elaine knew enough to know to get the fuck out of dodge after the thrall spell broke if she didn't want to be picked up as an accomplice to DuMorne. And I'm fairly sure that, while he wasn't sorry Justin died, he was fairly repentant in terms of "I'm never going to kill a human with magic fire ever again, and I didn't really want to in the first place if I wasn't gonna get killed myself *vomits at the memories of burning humans*" much like Molly was repentant in "I never want to hurt people like I hurt my friends," once she realized just how much damage she had wrought. Of course, Molly was actually sorry she'd done it, once she realized the damage, but repentant isn't necessarily sorry. As I said, by the time they brought the Korean boy in, he was a raving megalomaniac psychopath who could and would manipulate minds to get his way.

Remember that Justin was a warlock training those two to be thugs, though. That doesn't require them to have a lot of knowledge of Laws or the WC. After all, if the Wardens ever caught them and Justin, all three would die. Also, Elaine didn't even know what was happening. Her mind was fucked with, her Father-figure killed, her Boyfriend killed him, and her house went up in flames. Not hard to see why she'd run.

I don't remember Harry ever regreting killing someone he felt needed to die, except Corpsetaker, for some strange reason. Especially not Justin. Granted, he was sad about killing Elaine, despite Bob saying she wasn't dead, but never Justin. He just happened to get off on self-defense (and Eb's stepping in). And he's been willing to kill with fire many times.

 

[Solarman]

I'm not so sure about him not knowing about the Council.? After all, Justin DuMorne was a former Warden, and Elaine knew enough to know to get the fuck out of dodge after the thrall spell broke if she didn't want to be picked up as an accomplice to DuMorne.? And I'm fairly sure that, while he wasn't sorry Justin died, he was fairly repentant in terms of "I'm never going to kill a human with magic fire ever again, and I didn't really want to in the first place if I wasn't gonna get killed myself *vomits at the memories of burning humans*" much like Molly was repentant in "I never want to hurt people like I hurt my friends," once she realized just how much damage she had wrought.? Of course, Molly was actually sorry she'd done it, once she realized the damage, but repentant isn't necessarily sorry.? As I said, by the time they brought the Korean boy in, he was a raving megalomaniac psychopath who could and would manipulate minds to get his way.

Remember that Justin was a warlock training those two to be thugs, though. That doesn't require them to have a lot of knowledge of Laws or the WC. After all, if the Wardens ever caught them and Justin, all three would die. Also, Elaine didn't even know what was happening. Her mind was fucked with, her Father-figure killed, her Boyfriend killed him, and her house went up in flames. Not hard to see why she'd run.

I don't remember Harry ever regreting killing someone he felt needed to die, except Corpsetaker, for some strange reason. Especially not Justin. Granted, he was sad about killing Elaine, despite Bob saying she wasn't dead, but never Justin. He just happened to get off on self-defense (and Eb's stepping in). And he's been willing to kill with fire many times.

Since you're just as likely to skip over parts of my argument a second time, I'll concede the point to you, though I'm still unconvinced that my memory's wrong on Elaine.

Still... Anyone have a reason Rashid might prevent the Council from axing the Serenity crew and isntead hand them off to Harry?

 

[Ryuugi]

I'm not so sure about him not knowing about the Council.á After all, Justin DuMorne was a former Warden, and Elaine knew enough to know to get the fuck out of dodge after the thrall spell broke if she didn't want to be picked up as an accomplice to DuMorne.á And I'm fairly sure that, while he wasn't sorry Justin died, he was fairly repentant in terms of "I'm never going to kill a human with magic fire ever again, and I didn't really want to in the first place if I wasn't gonna get killed myself *vomits at the memories of burning humans*" much like Molly was repentant in "I never want to hurt people like I hurt my friends," once she realized just how much damage she had wrought.á Of course, Molly was actually sorry she'd done it, once she realized the damage, but repentant isn't necessarily sorry.á As I said, by the time they brought the Korean boy in, he was a raving megalomaniac psychopath who could and would manipulate minds to get his way.

Remember that Justin was a warlock training those two to be thugs, though. That doesn't require them to have a lot of knowledge of Laws or the WC. After all, if the Wardens ever caught them and Justin, all three would die. Also, Elaine didn't even know what was happening. Her mind was fucked with, her Father-figure killed, her Boyfriend killed him, and her house went up in flames. Not hard to see why she'd run.

I don't remember Harry ever regreting killing someone he felt needed to die, except Corpsetaker, for some strange reason. Especially not Justin. Granted, he was sad about killing Elaine, despite Bob saying she wasn't dead, but never Justin. He just happened to get off on self-defense (and Eb's stepping in). And he's been willing to kill with fire many times.

Since you're just as likely to skip over parts of my argument a second time, I'll concede the point to you, though I'm still unconvinced that my memory's wrong on Elaine.

Still... Anyone have a reason Rashid might prevent the Council from axing the Serenity crew and isntead hand them off to Harry?

Not really, which is why I skipped over those parts in your previous post. I had nothing to say about them.

 

[Garlak]

The White Council doesn't axe non-magic users who simply get caught up in things.


The WC kills non-magicals who fight them, like Denarian/Red Court flunkies/hirelings, though even then they wouldn't use magic to do so.

The WC, and the supernatural world in general, does NOT approve of non-magic-capable people being "in the know."

They do not, however, kill or mind-wipe "mundanes" who get caught up in magical business. They simply don't. The WC might send the crew back to their proper time, if that action would decrease the damage of/potential of paradox, but as far as messing with their minds go, I kinda doubt they'd go farther than telling them to keep quiet, why to keep quiet, and keep watch over them.



In real life, while ignorance of the law is not an excuse, ignorance of the consequences of one's actions can sometimes be an excuse. Like if the person is insane, had no idea hitting that button was going to KILL people, or too stupid/young to understand the consequences. Extenuating circumstances, such as self-defense, also might get you off.
The White Council seems to follow that pattern. Not knowing the 7 laws does not get you off. Acting in self-defense, like Dresden, or being unaware of what damage they've done AND turning oneself in and cooperating (like Molly) has shown to get an innocent verdict.

The one way the WC might take action against a "mundane" would be if said mundane started killing members of the White Council or something...

 

[Dementist]

The White Council doesn't axe non-magic users who simply get caught up in things.


The WC kills non-magicals who fight them, like Denarian/Red Court flunkies/hirelings, though even then they wouldn't use magic to do so.

The WC, and the supernatural world in general, does NOT approve of non-magic-capable people being "in the know."

They do not, however, kill or mind-wipe "mundanes" who get caught up in magical business. They simply don't. The WC might send the crew back to their proper time, if that action would decrease the damage of/potential of paradox, but as far as messing with their minds go, I kinda doubt they'd go farther than telling them to keep quiet, why to keep quiet, and keep watch over them.



In real life, while ignorance of the law is not an excuse, ignorance of the consequences of one's actions can sometimes be an excuse. Like if the person is insane, had no idea hitting that button was going to KILL people, or too stupid/young to understand the consequences. Extenuating circumstances, such as self-defense, also might get you off.
The White Council seems to follow that pattern. Not knowing the 7 laws does not get you off. Acting in self-defense, like Dresden, or being unaware of what damage they've done AND turning oneself in and cooperating (like Molly) has shown to get an innocent verdict.

The one way the WC might take action against a "mundane" would be if said mundane started killing members of the White Council or something...

You're right in that the White Council doesn't casually execute normals for getting caught up in things, but we also haven't seen how they react to normals with the (likely) potential to fubar all of reality.

If there's absolutely no way to avoid it, several lives are a small price to pay for preventing the universe from imploding.

And you're overestimating the WC's leniency in cases like Dresden's teacher-cide and Molly's warlock charge. Subjective pleas like self-defense and repentance don't get ya off the hook. Dresden got a razor edged probation that he lived under for a significant chunk of his life after the Blackstaff sponsored him. And Molly would've gone under the axe without Dresden's raid on Arctis Tor and her father waving a sword covered in vampire blood under the Merlin's nose.

 

[Garlak]

Dresden also had the misfortune of being his mother's son, who had a not very good reputation among the WC.

Molly had the misfortune of the Merlin hating Dresden and deciding to be a dick.


And what does Arctis Tor have to do with getting a stay of execution from the White Council? We're talking about dealing with those who break the law, quite aside from the possibility of killing themselves in the process.

 

[Dragonlover553]

Dresden also had the misfortune of being his mother's son, who had a not very good reputation among the WC.

Molly had the misfortune of the Merlin hating Dresden and deciding to be a dick.

You forgot to mention that there was an evil wizard actively psychically influencing the Merlin into taking actions that would blow up in his(and the Council's) face. Killing a potentially useful asset like Molly over his hate of Harry would almost definitely NOT be something he'd do otherwise. He didn't actually know Harry was good friends with Molly's entire family. All he knew is that Harry was standing up for this girl.

 

[Dragonlover553]

To blow a great, gaping hole in your idea: One of the Laws prohibits mucking about with time. It's not so much to prevent warlocks from making themselves rich as to stop all of reality imploding via time paradox.

Given how utterly hard-assed the council is, there's not a chance in hell they'll let the crew run around freely. That's assuming they don't just vaporize the gang to prevent unintended causality fuckups, of course.

The laws do, but you can make a case of them being unwitting particippants.  And if them being there is going to fuck the universe, it would have hapened already.

Why Harry? Because we know the most about harry.

Being unwitting is not an excuse as far as the Council is concerned. Molly, Harry, and nameless-Korean-nobody were all unwitting.

Especially since messing with Time (and, really, Laws 5-7), are the most important Laws, as far as the Council is concerned. Hell, breaking the Seventh Law doesn't even require casting a spell, but they'll still kill you for it (which is understandable).

Also, just like running into a school and unloading a machine-gun (but not killing anyone), as well as playing chicken with Nukes, it didn't end badly this time isn't an excuse.

In what way were any of them unwilling? Harry chose to kill Justin(in self defense, but he went there with the intention of fighting his teacher, knowing that he was the lesser of the two, and he knew no magic that could be used nonlethaly). Molly chose to mess with her friends minds(in a foolish attempt to help them, but in the end, she chose to cut into the minds of other people). Nameless-Korean-nobody chose to screw with the minds of over a dozen people. None of them were ever unwilling. Uneducated, perhaps, especially when it came to Molly, but never unwilling. Unwilling to die for their crimes, perhaps, but never unwilling to commit them. They chose their paths, even if they didn't know what lay at the end. You don't pardon a murderer because he didn't know that there was someone out there who would actually punish him for it.

 

[zerohour]

The White Council i sthe type to shoot first, and not bother asking questions later.   For the example executions, we have the following:
Korean dude who Dresden admits needed to be killed.
Dresden himself, who was saved by his grandfather.  A man with significant connections to the senior council, and the Blackstaff, aka the guy allowed to violate the laws however he damn well pleases, and casually blew up a major vampire stronghold because he was a threat to his grandson.
Molly, who was saved by Deus ex Machina.  Literally, her father was sent on a mission from god to stop the slaughter of the new generation of the White Council's military arm, coming back with enough of the Senior Council to sway the vote from 6 to 1 to somethign that actually let her live.
Both Harry and Molly lived under the Doom of Damocles, which meant that one toe out of line, and Morgan could have come along and killed them without a problem.

Honestly, I don't see firefly in Dresden's time as a good match up.  Harry in their time seems like it would be much more interesting.  It's a lot easier to accomplish.  Mab puts him on ice for some slight, or less problematically

Is he still a walking techbane, or has magic evolved into something new?  What happened to Summer and Winter?  Is River a witch, something else magical, or something entirely new?  What happened to Thomas?  What happened to Molly?  Did the earth get used up, or was it one of Nicodemus's schemes that actually succeeded?  There are plenty of questions that could make for a much more interesting story than the other way around.

With your setup, the major issue is the crew getting used ot magic being real, and that's not going to be very interesting unless at least one of them is magical too, and that's still pretty difficult to pull off.  The setup for Firefly means they are used to tech levels ranging from old west to super futuristic, so thing being primitive wouldn't really be much of a problem for them.